Exactly What You Expect- Big Budget

Rating: 3/10 (24 January 2016)

**SPOILERS** Okay, now that I've seen three of Michael Bay's films I understand his 'thing' as an artist. He's basically a twelve year old boy with millions of dollars. But, like, the sort of twelve year old who rides a dirt bike behind a trailer park, drinks the leftover beers he finds in communal spaces, throws firecrackers at stray cats and scopes out females twice his age. Basically, Bay is a simple-minded idiot with nothing new or interesting enough to be considered anything more than lucky in the industry.
He's not subtle. Not creative. Not deep. He's a what-you-see-is- what-you-get sort of artist and has marketed himself on what he does best- action. The only reason why anyone would ever see any Bay film is for the action. Screw the characters and story, if there's a reason why Bay keeps getting hired to direct, it's because he delivers with explosions, metal scraping metal and thousands upon thousands of dollars in collateral damage. So, in that regard, the film did what it was supposed to; provide ample action scenes and sprinkle in a little plot here and there.
If The Giver, The Matrix and Aeon Flux didn't exist, I'd say the story was passable. But it was yet another dystopia reality film which means it demanded a flair of originality.
The time the story takes place was left pretty arbitrary but if I know human nature like I do, I think it's safe to say that there's one predictable reaction to what's practically meeting a farm cow that suddenly gained existentialism- fear and violence. Over the course of time, humans have proved that the appropriate response to something new, confusing, surprising and scary is to lash out. Caution overpowers curiosity. I believe the moment Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi's characters recognized defiance and cognition in the main character, they would've quarantined and/or killed him. Considering these organ donors were kept so hush-hush from the public, you KNOW it's a secret for good reason. Why would they go to such lengths to keep them hidden then turn a blind or curious eye when there's a threat of the farm cow going public?
So I get that the only people who can afford a farm cow/organ donor would be the incredibly wealthy. But I got really hung up on the occupations of the two main benefactors and how it seemed like a portrayal of bad-ass lucrative jobs according to gender. Thus, an automotive designer and a porn star. Wow. No subtleties there huh? Just a dude who draws sick motorcycles and a chick who takes a penis or two on camera. Michael Bay surprised no one by providing a female support character who's role was to serve as something to bounce dialogue off of, provide character development (for the main character) and most importantly, just look hot for the audience. That's Bay's thing; the female characters in movies serve as hot pieces of meat that help further dialogue. They're pretty unessential to the story. They're just accessories. And I think the two occupations of the main characters serve as good proof of Bay's opinion on gender roles.
So clearly this is not the movie to watch if you're into gender equality. Back to the action though. Like I said, this is probably the only reason to see a Bay film. If you're like me, though, once you've seen one five minute action scene from Bay, you've seen them all. So I didn't have fun watching The Island at all. In fact I skipped the action scenes to see more plot development. In the end, I didn't finish the film because it was so unrewarding in every aspect.
If I liked all the needless action, I'd say those scenes made the movie worth watching. But as someone who rolls their eyes with every Michael Bay explosion, I can safely say The Island had nothing worthwhile in it.
**SPOILER-FREE CONCLUSION** Coming from someone who doesn't wet themselves over expensive and elaborate CGI action scenes and car chases, this movie is a complete waste of time. The story has been done before and the one original twist doesn't makeup for anything. The behavior is unrealistic. The main characters are so uninteresting and essentially echoes of every main characters in every Bay film. Once again, Bay demonstrates that he has a basic understanding of film and when given basically all the money he could ask for, produces what you'd expect a twelve year old prepubescent Hot Wheels fanatic to make. The action scenes are predictably very well rendered and well made and the highlight of any Bay film (if you like that stuff). This was a film made by an idiot, for idiots, hence I rate it 3/10. Points scored for big budget and notably good actors. Points lost for being a twelve year old's fever dream.